17 October 2014

Im just on the home straight now of the Natimuk Small town transformation project wherein lots of great stuff happens in the middle of town including the creation of a large scale kinetic sculpture by Sam Deal that is going to drive a bunch of visuals that will be projected from the sculpture up onto the freshly install shade sails above.

Scribbly sketch of mine inspired by the start Sam had already made on the sculpture (trying to work out how to manage the projector mounted in head concept)

Again its all part of this idea of making work that people really need to actively participate in rather than just sit there and consume it. Its something I spent a lot of time exploring during my fellowship last year...Something I hinted at with the Virtual Bike and Something's Afoot... at the the Nati Frinj last year and something that's probably going to be playing a much bigger part in at least the next few projects I'm involved in.

Heres a couple of stils of me experimenting with a kind of real-time light painting idea (these are screen grabs rather than long exposures). The idea is that a camera mounted high in the sculpture will allow people with lights (torches, phones, lighters, whatever) to paint onto the shade sails by running around in the skate park. Meanwhile people operating the sculpture will be able to manipulate this raw material to create even more variety. The idea is that one person on their own should still be able to create something pretty interesting but that mutliple people working as a team will be able to take it to a whole different level.

And here are a coupel of shots of the sculpture slowly coming together in Sam's workshop.

Between the solar panels on its head and the pedal power inputs the
sculpture aims to generate enough power by day to keep the projections
going at night (with the option to keep it topped up with the pedal
power should it start running low).

A host of big chunky knobs and dials all hooked up to electronic sensors provide the input that will drive the visuals.

the mirror on the back bounces the projections up and out to fill the shade sails (planetarium style)

So Ive been working on the visuals side of things, Sam's
been working on the sculpture and this coming week it all comes together
for the first time with a whopping 4 days to make it all work before
the launch.